September 06, (THEWILL) –Â Hossam al-Badry, the coach of the Egyptian senior men’s national football team, the Pharaohs, has been fired by the Egyptian Football Association a day after the Pharaohs could only get a draw against Gabon in their second Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifier.
The Monday statement from the EFA, which was shared across their social media accounts, reads: “The association decided in an emergency meeting …to thank the coaching and technical staff for their services with the national squad.”
The statement finished by revealing the EFA’s plans to name a new coach within 48 hours.
The decision is not unconnected to the tame and sluggish performance of the national team against Gabon on Sunday, where they trailed after going behind in the 73rd minute at the Stade de Franceville in Gabon.
Although, they were down to 10-men after a red card issued to right-back Omar Gaber in the 70th minute, they needed a 90th-minute equaliser to rescue a point. This followed their laboured 1-0 win against Angola in thewir first World Cup qualifier.
All of these prompted furious criticism from disappointed fans on social media, leaving the EFA little wiggle room and necessitating a strong reaction and the fallout came on Monday with the sacking.
Mohamed Salah, their best forward, was in the Sunday lineup for the Gabon match after missing the Angola game due to the insistence of English Premier League clubs to withhold their players from traveling to countries red-listed by the UK to avoid lengthy quarantines upon re-entry to England.
al-Badry had been in the job for two years and was initially asked to tender his resignation to prevent the sack. According to Badry, when he refused to tender his resignation, the EFA fired him.
He pointed to the fact the Pharaohs were still top of their World Cup group with four points. In addition to that, he had proven himself by guiding Egypt to qualification for next year’s African Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
Those reasons did not seem to have swayed the EFA and they will now have to get a new coach that will be tasked with keeping the Pharaohs on top of the qualifying series when the next set of qualifiers kickoff in October. Egypt are due to host Libya in their matchday three Group F tie on Saturday, October 9.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
